Today marked an annual ceremony called Ladies Day, when Royalty and their hangers-on gather to ostensibly attend a horse race in the small town of Ascot in England. The exclusive Royal Enclosure also requires attendees to adhere to particular fashion requirements, which prompt the question: Dear England, what the fuck is on your head?
As any etiquette-obsessed caricature of a British person in a children's movie will tell you, British people are very fancy and also do not slurp your soup when you eat it.
Tragically lucky British man Lee Knight's first wife tried to kill him by putting antifreeze in his curry. Knight's soon-to-be second wife took care of him after the poisoning. It's karma in action, with a dash of trading up!
Jay-Z's always been a pretty cagey interviewee, especially regarding the way he won't tout or discuss his working or home relationship with wife Beyonce Knowles with anybody. But he started to loosen up a little on the BBC last night.
It's been a rough few months for aging British musicians, apparently. According to the Sunday Times, Elton John's net worth has plummeted by 26 percent on account of the financial crisis. Mick Jagger is down 16 percent and is now worth a mere $280 million. And Eric Clapton's net worth now stands at $176 million, since his fortune has dwindled by 14 percent over the last year. Good news (or bad news, depending on your perspective): The paper reports David and Victoria Beckham's wealth is unchanged. [Bloomberg]
We could just about cope when British people were colonizing the West Village, infiltrating the media, and seducing our musicians, but this is much, much worse: Now they're commandeering our plastic surgeons! The WSJ reports that the weak dollar and the high price of surgery in Europe has led to an influx of patients from the UK, who combine affordable facelifts and nosejobs with shopping and vacationing:
So what's the latest plan to keep Amy Winehouse and her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, from, you know, dying? Well, her in-laws Giles and Georgette Fielder-Civil appeared live on BBC Radio 5 this morning to tell you that you should stop buying her records. That way, Amy and Blake won't have any more money for the drugs they're addicted to, which Giles and Georgette theorize are crack and heroin. "I think they believe they are recreational users of drugs, and they are in control, but it seems to Georgette and I that this isn't the case," Giles explained. Seriously, don't you love how understated British people are sometimes? They could be clutching a bloody stump and they'd be all, "I'm feeling a bit poorly!"
Amy Winehouse's In-Laws Stage Intervention On The Radio [Guardian]
The owners of twee West Village comfort foodery Tea & Sympathy have banded together with other Brit businesses, including Virgin Airlines (!?) to wage a publicity stunt: they're campaigning to have that stretch of Greenwich Ave. officially dubbed "Little Britain," like in that episode of Arrested Development. "The campaign will use typical British humor, posing the question "What's one more Queen in the Village", as well as reminding New Yorkers that the Brits "took Madonna off your hands." What delightful tomfoolery! But some people aren't so enthusiastic about the proliferation of British expats in our town.
